County native Haiti-bound

Published on January 14th, 2010

Published on Febuary 20th, 2010

CFB GAGETOWN - A county native is part of Canada's contribution to the earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.
Cpl. Blake Roach, formerly of Stellarton, is on the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) that's preparing to travel to the impoverished Caribbean island which was devastated by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on Tuesday.
Roach, an electrical distribution tech posted to CFB Gagetown in Oromocto, N.B., with 4 Engineering Support Regiment, got the word early Wednesday that they would be heading south.
He said they were leaving Gagetown late Wednesday night for CFB Trenton in Ontario.
"I have no idea when we're flying down to Haiti," he said in a phone interview on Wednesday afternoon. "There's a recee (reconnaissance) group that went down now. Word will filter back what they need."
Roach said DART is 40-day deployment unit and getting packed was his number-one concern at the moment. "I'm trying to cram 40 days worth of stuff into three bags in three hours…I'm trying to think if I have everything I need. I don't think there's going to be a corner store there to pick things up."
Roach, who served in Afghanistan, said he wasn't scared or excited to be going, but he would like to know what's ahead.
"I'm just a little apprehensive about what we're going to run into when we get there."
He said that whatever they're expected to do, they likely won't know until later. "We probably won't find out until we get down there. We don't even know where we're staying. We'll probably build a camp."
Regardless of their tasks, members of the DART weren't ordered to participate.
"Nobody was forced to go," he said. "We had every opportunity to back out. It's part of the job. It's something that not everybody gets to do."
Roach said about 40 personnel from Gagetown are participating as members of the construction end of DART including carpenters, plumbers, generator technicians, a refrigeration tech, field engineers and a heavy equipment section.
Two Canadian navy ships are taking part in the humanitarian efforts - which the Canadian Forces is referring to as Operation Hamlet - as well.
HMCS Halifax and HMCS Athabaskan are scheduled to leave today with medical supplies, food, construction materials and other equipment.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay said in a news conference on Wednesday that the Canadian Forces is sending a C-17 - the Forces largest cargo plane - to Haiti today with a helicopter, personnel and medical supplies.

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